Market Discussions

I've been considering taking up trading as a side hobby before i dedicate alot of time to it and i had a few questions

1. Is it usually more worth it to buy and sell to other trade hubs? Ive noticed a few outlying systems near null and warzones that need specific modules and can sell for much higher prices, but is the volume enough to make it worth while?

2. Would it be wise to buy a spreadsheet with isk from one of the people that does that sort of market spreadsheet software, if im not great at analysing the market yet?

3. Is trading fun for you? If so, why? It seems not mind numbing, and pretty relaxing but i havent done it alot so please let me know if you think it is

Appreciate all the help!

The answers to all your questions is "It depends...."


1. Is it more worth it to sell to trade hubs - outlying systems

You've got two different scenarios in the one question here; A trade hub is Amarr or Rens or Dodixie or something of that scale -- 95% of the time these *dont* have modules missing from the market. They will often have common modules that sell for 10+% more than you can buy them for from Jita... but margins on commonly used modules fluctuate quite a bit as other traders ship in freighter loads from Jita when they see the margins move to a point they are happy with, and industrial types can often ship in a week or two's worth of whatever they were building and tank various module markets with over-supply.

An outlying system; somewhere on the fringe of High to Low or High to Null can often have a lot of stuff missing from the market, and can often make a higher profit - but there will possibly be a lot less volume. If you can stock a high traffic system and get high turnover of goods at a high profit, you've essentially hit the holy grail of year 1 trading.

So the first series of "It depends...:

• How involved do you want to be in terms of time commitment; are we talking 3 hours every day or 1 hour a week here ?
• How much capital do you have available to trade with ?
• How are your trade skills; Accounting and Broker Relations to IV at least, and more than 50 market slots... 200 slots ??
• Have you considered whether you will be hauling your own goods to market, or if you will be couriering things around ?

Trading between market hubs will take a lot more effort than supplying an outlying system - you'll be fighting 0.01isk style with the other traders a lot in an actual hub, but whilst you are at it you will be hopefully earning on high turnover.
Stocking an outlying system can be very nicely hands off - stock up as much as you can, see whats sold this time next week and buy more of that... see what hasnt sold this time next month and swap it out for something different... Can be highly profitable, may not be - could be that outlying system is neglected for a reason...


2. Wise to buy a spreadsheet ?


Nope... probably not, I wouldnt.... but it depends...
Until you work out what you are actually /wanting/ to do with trading - buying someone else's system will not be a good thing.
Work out the specifics of how and what, then look ways to improve your efficiency and bookkeeping. An off the shelf thing isn't necessarily going to suit you.
Spreadsheets aren't *hard* - I've never bought one, I'd be reasonably skeptical and suggest that a lot of them will have limited useful beyond earning some ISK for the creator - and the others I've seen are more tuned towards high volume station-trading anyhow.


3. Is it fun for me ?

Why does it matter ? - I find lots of things fun that other people don't ;) -- It all depends on whether you can work out whether it is fun for you ? you need to work that out, put a bit of time and effort into it and if its fun for you - do it more. If not. Don't. Rocket Science is the best science :)

But because I'm typing...
Yes...It is fun for me. But I've got a history and a story and the rest of it -my trading has evolved to maintain just the right effort to reward to not mind numbing ratio:
In the early days I did basic arbitrage Jita to Dodixie with my own hauling. I would use eve-central to compare prices (trade finder and system compare tool), load up a hauler and then list stuff on the market. Eventually graduated to doing this in my own freighter. Time commitment an hour plus a day - 20ish mins buying 20ish mins hauling 20ish mins listing... Got me from 1B to 20B in a few months... Dropped the time commitment eventually to buying on day 1 and setting up courier contracts and then listing on day 2 etc... profits dropped, but hey earning ISK with less effort is the ultimate goal.

I then moved onto random outlying station stocking in addition to hub-hub stuff - I think I went to Stacmon first (close to Dodixie, so setting up a supply chain for a courier Jita to Dodi, then hauling myself to Stacmon was easy) Found I could list a lot of stuff for a higher profit, some would be undercut within hours, a fair amount within a day or two but enough would just sell and make a high percentage - so worked to a nice low effort yet high enough profit setup for me.

I'm now a year 3 trader... and my overall strategy has moved to be as hands off as possible - swing trading, and long term stocking are now one of my things. Market orders last 90 days, I've got a lot of capital and market slots to play with... so very viable for me to sit down for a couple of hours one day and buy say 100B of stuff, ship it all via courier to random locations, spend an hour or two listing on the markets next weekend (yayy! multi-sell) and then 100% forget about it all for 3 months. ...I still own many freighters and hauling characters.... would rather stab myself in the eye with a fork than watch a freighter do a 30J round trip anywhere nowdays - I can pay some random 10 or 15M in exchange for an hour or two of my time :)

Setting up an essentially passive ISK printing 'empire' (I'm a corner shop in comparison to some guys around here) that constantly rolls in ISK for very little effort, that has enabled me to enjoy fine tuning and actually enjoy researching new markets, investments and strategies was all very long term fun :)